The council of Navia in the «Godoy’s census», , Oviedo, IFESXVIII / Ediciones Trea (ACESXVIII, 1), 2017

Abstract

This research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the so-called Godoy’s Census, one of the most important and rare pre-statistical population counts. For this reason, the preservation of the file and the original questionnaires corresponding to both the former council of Navia (Asturias) and its parishes give this documentation a special value, whose content allows us to analyze the demographic and economic-professional structure of the council in 1797. With a population that tends to stagnate and an economy with rather mediocre values in manufactures and services, Navia will be an example of the backward situation that lives Asturias because, despite its location in the maritime front of the Principality —generally more developed than its interior— and like what will happen in other parts of Spain, at the end of the Old Regime a crisis affected by the fiscal pressure and the warlike atmosphere of the reign of Carlos IV intensifies.